Preparing for his first debate last year, Donald Trump became so riled he blew up at Chris Christie, who was substituting for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The former New Jersey Governor brought up his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, noting their self-enrichment as members of the Trump administration.
ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl reveals in his forthcoming [1] book Betrayal: The Final Act of The Trump Show, that the rehearsal turned into an explosive situation. Insider [2] obtained a copy of the book.
Preparations for the debate were held in the Map Room, located in the basement of the White House. Trump was accompanied by Christie; his campaign manager Bill Stepien; his advisor Stephen Miller; his counselor Kellyanne Conway; Rudy Giuliani; Hope Hicks; press secretary Kayleigh McEnany; and chief of staff Mark Meadows.
During the rehearsal, Christie played Joe Biden, something he most likely came to regret as the situation unfolded.
Conway served as the moderator, but Giuliani threw a real monkey wrench into the proceedings. He was completely preoccupied with Hunter Biden’s business activities in Ukraine and urged Trump to attack Biden over this.
“Rudy was being a disruptive force,” one attendee told Karl. “No matter what we were talking about, all he wanted to do was talk about Hunter Biden.”
Giuliani repeatedly attempted to show a video that allegedly illustrated more evidence of Biden’s corruption, but his iPad kept freezing. At one point Christie started to think this would be a risky route for for Trump to take since he was already in hot water over his own ethics. So, in character as Joe Biden, he decided to demonstrate this point.
“You have real nerve talking about relatives taking advantage of political power,” Christie told Trump, according to Karl. “You’ve invited your daughter and son-in-law into the White House and they made $36 million last year while they were doing the people’s business. Your family traded the influence they have in the White House to make tens of millions of dollars.”
Trump was not too happy about that.
“That’s absolutely untrue! We’ve lost money here,” was his response. “We’ve lost money here. My children are losing money being here. Jared has sacrificed more than anyone being away from his business. He hasn’t made any kind of money.”
Christie pressed on and Trump became enraged.
“I’m not going to sit here and put up with this sh*t,” he snapped while glaring at Christie, notes Karl.
Christie, being himself again told Trump, “if you go too deeply into the Hunter Biden stuff, this is the kind of stuff he will hit you back on. You’ve got to be ready for that. My job is to get you ready,” he said.
“I don’t want to hear any more,” Trump said. “I know what they’re going to say. Enough. Let’s move on.”
When it was finally time for the debate, Trump, as many of us remember, interrupted Biden numerous times and Christie had sharp criticism [3] for Trump’s performance.
“You come in and decide you want to be aggressive, and I think that was the right thing to be aggressive, but that was too hot,” he said. “And so I think that what happens is with all that heat, as you said before, you lose the light. That potentially can be fixed. Maybe, maybe not.”
"Is that the debate you prepared for?" @GStephanopoulos [4] asks.
"No," @ChrisChristie [5] says, saying Pres. Trump was "too hot," but that Joe Biden did not turn in a "reassuring performance." https://t.co/wGz0RuZ29W [6] #Debates2020 [7] pic.twitter.com/mdlpAy9iDb [8]
— ABC News (@ABC) September 30, 2020 [9]
That first debate turned out to be a real mess, The New York Times [10] notes, as Trump, whose poll numbers were dropping steadily, continually interrupted Biden, finally prompting him to call Trump a “clown” and ultimately to tell him to “shut up.”
We saw how all of the debates went. Trump couldn’t interrupt and shout himself back into the presidency. People were overwhelmingly tired of his bellicose ranting and belittling of people. And it showed [11] when more than 81 million people voted for Biden, compared to just over 74 million votes for Trump. It showed when the Electoral College called it for Biden.
Trump pulled the same tactics when he ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016. I’m guessing most people weren’t used to Trump’s belligerence but after being subjected to it, we were all tired. Just tired. I’m sure Chris Christie doesn’t miss Trump screaming at him either.